Digital Only Subscription
Read the digital SMART Edition of The Times-Tribune on your PC or mobile device, and have 24/7 access to breaking news, local sports, contests, and more at thetimes-tribune.com or on our mobile apps.

Digital Services
Have news alerts sent to your mobile device, read the Smart Edition sign up for daily newsletters, activate your all access, enter contests, take quizzes, download our mobile apps and see the latest e-circulars.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Joseph P. McDonald manned the switchboard at Fort Shafter in Hawaii when he received the alarming message that radar had detected a large number of planes approaching from the north, heading fast for Oahu.
(read more)

Motorists who use the Pango mobile app to pay at parking meters in Scranton will get reimbursed for any inadvertent overcharges since Sept. 1, the new operator of the city’s parking system said.
(read more)

Article Tools

He was gazing out the window when shattering glass and a flash of light jolted him in the back seat.

The Jeep smelled of sulfur. In front of him, Frank Bonacci started to turn away from the revolver Neil Pal fired from the driver’s seat.

“Frankie went to go say something like ‘no’ or ‘stop,’ ” Jason Dominick testified Tuesday, tears across his face. “Whatever he went to say, he didn’t finish it.”

The second shot killed Mr. Bonacci.

Mr. Bonacci and Mr. Dominick had questioned Mr. Pal’s route when he started to drive toward Ridge Row the morning of July 20, but their driver hadn’t answered.

Mr. Pal remained silent and kept driving along the railroad tracks, toward the Step Falls, Mr. Bonacci’s body lifeless in the passenger seat.

Mr. Dominick screamed, begging for Mr. Pal to spare his life, but Mr. Pal just kept driving. He didn’t know how long the drive was or how far they went.

When Mr. Pal stopped the Jeep, he pulled gloves from a pocket and then pulled Mr. Dominick from the backseat, wiping down both door handles and anything else he might have touched.

“I just watched him shoot somebody,” Mr. Dominick said, shaking on the stand, his voice quaking. Mr. Dominick testified at his homicide trial Tuesday, denying that he killed Mr. Bonacci.

Prosecutors said Mr. Dominick pulled the trigger in Mr. Bonacci’s shooting death last summer, motivated by jealousy over a woman both men had dated: Keri Tucker. Throughout the investigation, Mr. Dominick maintained that after an all-night party at Mr. Pal’s, the two had not gotten into the Jeep or left with Mr. Bonacci.

In court Tuesday, he shared what he said really happened that night, not the fabricated story he told investigators.

“Neil turned to me and said he should have shot him a third time,” he said, as the jury looked on.

He described the early morning hours of July 20 with terror; he screamed, cried and hoped he wouldn’t be the next to die.

“I still don’t know why he didn’t kill me,” Mr. Dominick said in a low, even voice.

Mr. Bonacci’s family looked on stoically from the front row as the accused killer disputed the prosecutors’ allegations.

Mr. Dominick’s mother turned away, muffling sobs as he described the threats that came next.

Mr. Pal flaunted the resources he had, saying even from jail, he would find a way to kill the people Mr. Dominick loved, including Ms. Tucker.

“I’ll have somebody kill your grandchildren. It’s nothing but time to me.”

After Mr. Pal placed the 50-pound rock on the accelerator, launching the Jeep and Mr. Bonacci’s body over the cliff where it would be found seven days later, he and Mr. Dominick began to walk.

He told Mr. Dominick to wash off blood from the shooting before they were picked up by Maribeth Castaldi, along Interstate 81.

When they arrived back at Mr. Pal’s home, he changed his clothes on the back deck. Mr. Pal poured gasoline over the discarded garments, lit the pile on fire and then lit a cigar from the flames, Mr. Dominick said.

He then joined friends at Chick’s Diner for breakfast because he had no choice — Mr. Pal told him to act normal.

So he ate toast, the only thing he could keep down in the aftermath.

When he finally arrived home, he cried himself to sleep until Mr. Pal called to meet up.

In the days that followed, he sent normal texts, posted normal status updates on Facebook and spoke normally, all at Mr. Pal’s direction.

And Mr. Pal called to check.

The 70 phones calls between the men in the days that followed Mr. Bonacci’s death included directions for what Mr. Dominick was to say to everyone, including police.

“You admit that you lied in that interview?” defense attorney Bernard Brown asked, referencing an interview with Dunmore police.

“Absolutely,” Mr. Dominick replied.

When they were together, Mr. Pal started by searching Mr. Dominick, checking for wires and checking his calls and texts.

“I lied to everyone. I had no option,” he said.

“I still feel he might kill me,” he added, eyes darting toward the back of the courtroom. “He might walk through the doors right now.”

During testimony, Mr. Dominick also addressed evidence the prosecution presented.

One text message he sent Mr. Pal has been displayed on the screen several times throughout the trial. The message said if anyone messed with “papi,” he would “pop” them. Mr. Dominick explained it was a lyric from a song and it was his standard practice to text friends lyrics or post them on his Facebook page.

“Everyone does it,” he said. “Everyone I know at least.”

He also addressed the conflict between him and Mr. Bonacci over Ms. Tucker, recalling the time the two dated.

“It was actually my fault she was seeing other people,” Mr. Dominick said. He had cheated on her.

He said that prosecutors hadn’t had the whole story when they discussed an instance where Mr. Dominick entered Ms. Tucker’s home uninvited, possibly through a window, and found her in bed with someone else.

Mr. Dominick said he had been invited. The two had made plans when they were together the night before.

He also downplayed a plan to fight with Mr. Bonacci after the two exchanged texts and calls on June 8. While he told Mr. Bonacci to meet him at the tennis courts near The University of Scranton to fight, he said he also called Mr. Pal, hoping to end the problem. Mr. Bonacci never showed up.

Shortly after the two planned to fight, they met at Mr. Pal’s house and agreed the fighting was stupid, Mr. Dominick said.

“We settled that problem,” he said. “There was no problem again.”

Asked about identical tattoos he and Mr. Pal both have, Mr. Dominick said they were not meant to denote a bond between the two, but rather honor a mutual friend that died while the three were in high school.

He also denied confessing to the shooting to another inmate, who testified for the prosecution. Throughout his testimony, he repeated his fears and the threats he said Mr. Pal made.

“Not one day goes by when I don’t dream of Neil Pal shooting me,” he said.

The last question Mr. Brown posed was direct, asking if Mr. Dominick told the inmate he killed Mr. Bonacci.

“I would never say that, because I didn’t,” he said.

Mr. Dominick will retake the stand today to be questioned by the prosecution.

Also, the defense did not call two witnesses to testify to prior bad acts by Neil Pal because it would open up questioning regarding Mr. Dominick’s involvement in the La Familia group.

Mr. Dominick, 23, is charged in the shooting death of Frank Bonacci after an all-night party at co-defendant and alleged accomplice Neil Pal’s house in July. Mr. Dominick is the accused triggerman.

After the prosecution rested its case Monday, Mr. Brown asked to dismiss the top charges on the grounds that the prosecution had not produced enough evidence that showed Mr. Dominick owned a gun or had a gun on him the night Mr. Bonacci was killed.

Mr. Brown cited testimony of other partygoers who said no one saw Mr. Dominick with a gun.

Ultimately, the request was denied and the testimony resumed. Judge Nealon said even without the gun or an eyewitness placing Mr. Dominick in Mr. Bonacci’s vehicle, inmate Anthony Rusielewicz testified that Mr. Dominick confessed in jail, enough evidence to hold the charges.

During an earlier break, while the jury was out, both sides concluded two witnesses the defense planned to call were out.

Stephen Bieryla and Emily Gilgallon were expected to testify that Mr. Pal had used a gun in two previous instances. However, both instances were directly related to La Familia, a group that Mr. Pal and Mr. Dominick had started.

Mr. Bieryla was beaten and had an empty gun pulled on him for disobeying Mr. Pal’s La Familia orders, the judge read. Ms. Gilgallon was also going to testify that Mr. Pal fired a gun near her feet after she made a disrespectful comment regarding their La Familia tattoos.

Introducing either of those stories to a jury would require more context about La Familia, the prosecution said. Testimony about La Familia would show that Mr. Dominick either observed or participated in instances of violence and Mr. Brown said he would not call the witnesses.

Testimony about La Familia had been previously ruled out by the judge when Mr. Dominick and Mr. Pal were set to be tried together.

— JOSEPH KOHUT

In other testimony Tuesday:

n Cpl. Elwood F. Spencer Jr., a state police firearms identification expert, testified bullets recovered from Neil Pal’s garage had markings consistent with the bullet removed from Frank Bonacci’s head, but have not matched any weapon recovered. He test-fired a .38 caliber weapon the Pal family provided and compared those bullets with the other bullets recovered, but, the barrel patterns on the bullets did not match.

n Scranton Police Detective James Pappas recounted how investigators arrived at the conclusion Jason Dominick and Mr. Pal were responsible for the crime. They spoke with Dunmore police after Mr. Bonacci was discovered and learned the two were the last to see him alive, which they confirmed when Mr. Dominick spoke with Keri Tucker during a consensual phone tap. They established a timeline through an interview with Brandon Emily, who was on the back deck when the three left, and found surveillance footage showing Mr. Bonacci’s car going over train tracks off Ridge Row, where he would be discovered a week later. He also said attorney Corey Kolcharno told detectives his client, Anthony Rusielewicz, claims Mr. Dominick confessed the killing and Mr. Rusielewicz provided the notes.

n Jesse Hinkley, the owner of a recycling center near where the murder weapon was said to have been buried, testified he thought he heard someone digging nearby his business in October , though he did not see who or how many. In his testimony, Mr. Dominick said he brought police to where he and Mr. Pal buried the gun; police were unable to find it.

n Christina Armetta said she saw Mr. Dominick on July 19 and the two spent time at Nay Aug Park. She later dropped him off at a Turkey Hill instead of Mr. Pal’s house because she didn’t like Mr. Pal and felt unsafe at his home. She and Mr. Dominick have been friends since childhood and he is a good person, she said.

n Sal Armetta said he has known Mr. Dominick for 15 years and he has always been a nonviolent person. Mr. Dominick wrestled, but shook his opponents’ hands when he lost, he said.

n William McDonough has been friends with Mr. Dominick’s father since the ninth grade and said Mr. Dominick is almost “blood” to him. He said Mr. Dominick is mellow and calm and he “couldn’t even pick up a dead bird in my yard one time.”

n Matt Bernardi is a lifelong friend and said Mr. Dominick is a peaceful person. Mr. Bernardi said he called Mr. Dominick to kill a bat once, but his friend couldn’t.

n Ted Anderson is a teacher at Scranton High School and taught Mr. Dominick in his junior year. He said he never had a problem with Mr. Dominick.

What’s next

The prosecution will cross-examine Jason Dominick when he retakes the stand today. Tuesday’s testimony ended with the conclusion of attorney Bernard Brown’s direct examination of his client.

The defense will likely rest their case at the end of the testimony.

We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.